Talk:Earth 93/@comment-34521441-20180227041129/@comment-34521441-20180228204410
Trolls fit as mountain creatures in my mind. Maybe they lived in caverns so big that the stalagmites and stalagtites are like mountains? Hmm. I'm not sold on that one. I like the venom for Goblins. It fits their sneaky/scavenger aesthetic. That plus their gecko climbing makes them combatively distinct from the Dwarves. To make them culturaly distinct, I suggest that Goblins value commerce the same way Dwarves value craftsmanship. Wall Street style Goblins just cracks me up for some reason. They could have travling merchants. What about humaniod Salamanders for the underwater creatures? Cave Salamanders is already a thing. I think thay would be a cool aesthetic. I think mermaids should be primarily above ground. I haven't though of any cool twists for them yet, but culturaly I think we should shy away from both the technologically scifi atlantian varient, and the native american metaphor varient. I've been racking my mind for elf evolutionary pressure for a while now. I think our problem is that the dwarves have both advantages and disadvantages (which lends itself to evolutionary trade offs), while elves mostly have advantages. I think we should decided some disadvantages for the elves and then we can figure out their evolutionary origin. Maybe they were like Greco Roman nymphs and evolved to bond psychically with nature? That could be fun if we do it right, or a terrible native american metaphor if we do it wrong... One thought, if elves have better eyesight I figure they probably had evolutionary pressure in which they needed to see far away / detailed things. Maybe well camaflouged predators? My initial though is that the relationship between Dwarves and Elves is like Scotland and England, while the relatiionship with Goblins, and Trolls, is like Britain and Nazi Germany. The Dwarves and Elves are racist toward eachother, more so then humans, but beyond a few barfights they begrundingly recognize they are on the same side. On the otherhand Dwarves Trolls and Goblins have been on and off at war for millenia. They deeply hate eachother. I think the Deepsea as a source of conflict works because it exists in an ecoystem where natrual light is a scarece reasource. I think that above ground wars should be fought for more varied reasons because the Surface World is so much bigger and more varied. I do like the idea of fighting over ley-line intersections though. Perhaps we should avoid Stone Henge. It's so cliche, and their are other standing stone circles. Stone Henge does look pretty cool though... I figure pixies are either dragon fly style, or humming bird style. I still want to give them humaniod faces and bodies though. Questions I think my biggest question for you is what should the disadvantage of the elves be? Tolkein himself didn't always depict them as being perfect. In the Silmirillion it is implied that they are marginally less strong then humans. I think we can come up with some more creative trade offs though. Perhaps we should dig into some of the old myths for inspiration. Another question, diverse dwarvish culture and politics. I figure we should give the Dwarves some diversity. I'm playing with the idea of five nations that used to be very similar and are still technically ruled by the same king, but are very culturaly distinct by now. What do you think? How diverse should the dwarves be? Should they have seprate politicaly entities? A unified state? Somewhere inbetween? Also, where do you think the Fae Courts should fit into all this? Did dwarves start joining the courts when they re discovered the surface. What is the common link between the four races that are allowed to join the courts? Is it common anscestery? Something different? Another one: because apparenty I'm questiony today. Any ideas for Salamanders humaniods? Or any alternatives?